Thundering Herd riding high coming into the Doyt

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After dropping its first two games, including a seven-overtime 59-57 loss to FCS member Eastern Kentucky on Saturday, Bowling Green State University will have its work cut out this weekend.

The Falcons host the Marshall Thundering Herd on Saturday at 5 p.m. at Doyt Perry Stadium. It is the 100th Homecoming game at BGSU.

The very first Homecoming game at Bowling Green was on Nov. 4, 1922 against Toledo and was played at the fairgrounds after the parade arrived there.

The Marshall-BGSU game should also be historic — or at least have a lot of eyes on it.

Last Saturday, Marshall became the first Sun Belt Conference team to ever visit Notre Dame.

That’s only the beginning of the story.

The Herd defeated the Fighting Irish, 26-21 and have a 55-3 season-opening win over Norfolk State.

BGSU coach Scot Loeffler is aware of what his team is going up against.

“At the beginning of the season, not even in the beginning season, whenever we started our prep work in the wintertime and in the summertime for these four (non-league) opponents, we all thought that, arguably, Marshall could be the best team that we play all year long,” Loeffler said.

“They’re fast, they went down the transfer portal in some areas where they had some holes and to be quite honest with you in all three phases, they’re loaded,” he said. “They’re a very good football team. It doesn’t shock you one bit that they beat Notre Dame.”

Loeffler compared Marshall’s win to his team’s loss to Eastern Kentucky.

The Colonels, 42-34 losers to Eastern Michigan in their season opener, may be an NCAA Division I FCS football team playing BGSU, an FBS team, but Loeffler said they matched up well.

“It just shows you right now in college football, it doesn’t matter what emblem is on your helmet right now, it really doesn’t, just because of how crazy the transfer portal is,” Loeffler said.“If we would have pulled this game out, everyone would have went, ‘My gosh, I can’t believe you went into seven overtimes with EKU.

“Well, go watch the Eastern Michigan tape. Go watch that tape against EKU. They’re a good football team. I mean, they are. They would be highly competitive in our conference,” Loeffler continued.

“So, the emblem on the helmet doesn’t matter. What we’ve got to do is we’ve got to play our best football. They’ve got more talent than we do. There’s no question about that, but we’ve got to do all the little things really well to give ourselves a chance.”

Loeffler said the team has to find some silver linings, and that included the play of sophomore running back Ta’ron Keith, who had 13 carries for 61 yards and five catches for 59 yards and one touchdown.

“We’ve got explosive players on the perimeter. Thank goodness we’ve got depth at running back, considering our situation of having our top two guys out,” Loeffler said.

“I thought JP (Jaison Patterson) and Nick Mosley and mostly TK (Keith) really stepped up. But thank goodness we’ve got some depth at that position because it’s really, really hard, particularly in the MAC, to overcome your first two running backs being out.”

Bowling Green senior quarterback Matt McDonald was named the MAC East Division Offensive Player of the Week. It is the third career weekly honor for McDonald from the MAC.

McDonald threw for a career-high five touchdowns, which is tied for third-most in the nation this season and are the most in the MAC. He also rushed for a touchdown, giving McDonald a career-high six touchdowns responsible for.

He helped Bowling Green overcome a 14-point deficit in the second half, taking a seven-point lead late in the game. McDonald’s 64 rushing yards were a game high.

PaSean Wimberly may be a running back, but on special teams he is a dynamo so far. He ranks No. 1 in the MAC and No. 2 in the nation with two blocked kicks.

BGSU opened the season at the Rose Bowl and was leading UCLA 17-7 in the second quarter but fell to the Bruins, 45-17. Part of the reason for that first half lead was the play of Wimberly.

Each of his blocked punts led to touchdowns. At UCLA, Charles Rosser picked it up and returned it 11 yards for a touchdown. Against EKU, Patterson punched it in for a score seven plays later to put BG up by a touchdown late in the fourth quarter.

“That was great. PaSean, again going back to he does everything right in practice all the time, and when you get players that do that all the time, good things are going to happen to them,” Loeffler said.“It’s just not coincidence that he’s blocking punts on Saturday. He does it during the week. He’s full speed every single day, he’s in here doing extra.

“Those type of players always finding a way to be successful. I’m really, really excited about him and happy for him and he’s been doing a great job.”

Saturday is the 30th all-time meeting between Bowling Green and Marshall in a series that began in 1954 when the Herd first joined the Mid-American Conference.

BGSU leads the all-time series, 21-8; however, Marshall has won five of the last eight meetings.

Marshall was a member of the MAC from 1954-69 and then again from 1997-2005. The Thundering Herd won five MAC championships from 1997-2002.

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